Sir, – I’ve been a medical doctor for 36 years and a kidney transplant patient for five years. The kidney was a gift from my husband via a three-way paired organ donation in University Hospital Coventry facilitated by Beaumont’s living donor programme.
I still find it hard to describe the feeling of healthy exuberance I felt waking up from that transplant operation following the previous 20 months of dialysis.
I will never forget that feeling.The only previous feeling that came close to it was after the births of my two children.
The transplant was a rebirth for me.
I feel moved to raise awareness of the gift of life that organ donation represents by the fact that acute kidney injury and failure are among the many serious problems that Covid-19 can present.
Like everything else with this virus, it is an emerging picture.
The Lancet recently reported that 20 per cent to 40 per cent of the patients in intensive care will have acute kidney failure and need dialysis. Some of these people will continue to need dialysis after recovery.
We know that people with high blood pressure and diabetes are most at risk but previously healthy people have also been affected. That may be someone you know and love.
Dialysis is not an easy way of life. I can say this from personal experience, even though I did manage to continue to work part time and had two teenage children living at home, with one doing the Leaving Cert, during it.
If you’re wondering how you could help in the Covid-19 battle, become an organ donor. Get the card now and tell your family. I am living proof this is the greatest gift of life.
I have my life back and have been back working as a doctor in general practice and oncology, until of course I had to cocoon in March. – Yours, etc,
Dr TERESA KENNY,
Kilkenny.